Ready in minutes, these skinny coconut oil chocolate chip cookies are thick, soft, and naturally sweetened. They are also gluten and dairy-free!

I have been willing to share this cookie recipe for such a long time. April is almost over and it’s time for our cookie a month challenge. I have started this challenge at the beginning of the year with the idea to share 12 new cookie recipes this year (do I need to tell you how much I love cookies?). So far I shared the hazelnut chocolate chunk cookies, the fudgy chocolate brownie cookies and the carrot cake sandwich cookies. If you have any cookie request, we still have 8 months to go!

Coming back to these cookies, they were on top of my cookie-list for such a long time. I discovered them in the refrigerated section of a health store a couple of years ago and I have been willing to find the recipe ever since. We can really say it here: it was love at first bite!

A Chicago cookie story

I soon found out that the cookies were handcrafted in Chicago by a 2-women cookie business called Mera Bites. Both passionate about cookies, Anna and Sol share a common passion for healthy living, namely through nutrition and fitness. So together, they created their company ultimately as a means to educate and inspire others to eat clean and live well.

I met them once at a Christmas market in Chicago and they were extremely kind. Following our brief encounter, I then reached out to them by email, kindly asking if by any chance they could share the recipe with me. Unfortunately, they told me the recipe was patented, which was actually smart of them to do. This means of course that I couldn’t get the exact recipe but I intended to give it a try anyway.

So I did some research, mainly based on the ingredients listed at the back of each cookie, and tested many other cookies of the series along the way. Fast forward to 2019, I discovered that these precious cookies were now sold in the fresh section of some Whole Foods stores in Chicago – proof of their success.

What texture to expect?

Now let me tell you a little bit more about the cookies themselves and what makes them so special. Labelled as healthy cookies, many could actually wonder about the legitimacy of these cookies. Isn’t it the huge amount of butter combined with eggs and all-purpose flour that makes a real good cookie?

As an advocate of the gigantic Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies, based on these ingredients precisely, I would be tempted to say so. But the beauty of cookies is that there’s always a way to create a different version, playing with textures and flavors.

Expect here a very soft, thick cookie, not too sweet, with a lightly taste of coconut and loaded with chocolate chips.

What makes them so special?

Coconut oil – to replace butter, we use a very small amount of coconut oil, softened at room temperature rather than melted.
Almond Flour – the recipe is entirely gluten-free, prepared with almond flour instead of all-purpose flour. It makes the cookie skinnier with great nutritional properties (calcium, magnesium, vitamins, minerals and fibers). Also, and it’s important to mention it, the cookies don’t taste almond flour and I myself long thought it was regular flour.
Maple syrup – the cookies are very lightly sweetened with maple syrup in replacement of refined sugar.
One egg – I also added one egg that brings extra moistness and helps the cookie to hold its shape.

And voilà! Within just a few minutes (no dough chilling required!), you will get some beautiful thick, soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies. Enjoy!